The Armed Hook Up With Coheed and Cambria Drummer, Offer Free EP

Straight out of the Motor City comes The Armed. The self-described “hardcore collective” just released a self-produced EP titled ‘Young & Beautiful’ and they are offering it up for free. Yes, for free.

The new EP follows The Armed’ self-released debut album, ‘These Are Lights’, and a 2010 EP called ‘Common Enemies.’ Lead by drummer Tony Wolski, the Detroit collective pull from the same influences bands like Botch and Drowningman mined from in the late-’90s. Mixed by Kurt Ballou (Converge, Trap Them), ‘Young & Beautiful’ also features none other than current Coheed and Cambria and former Dillinger Escape Plan drummer Chris Pennie on a bastard of a track called ‘Mujahoudni.’

Check out the song below and learn more about The Armed from our conversation with drummer Tony Wolski.

Listen to ‘Mujahoudni’ From The Armed

You refer to The Armed as a collective. How do you go about writing your material?

There is a core group of us that write what will become at least the basis of all of our songs. Typically the process starts with me and
Kenny, our bass player, bouncing ideas off each other via really crappy sounding midi demos over email. Then the two of us get together and really flesh out a structure and a real song. That’s probably how at least 80% of our tracks get started.

Did you always set out to have this looser membership setup for the project or did it just evolve that way?

A little of both. From the very start, we agreed that we wouldn’t credit actual band members in the liner notes of any of our releases, only guest performers, and that’s only because we don’t want anyone to feel slighted by collaborating with us without recognition. To us, it’s all really just one big collaboration. However, we don’t really shy away from identifying ourselves or anything…people have figured it out and put it on Wikipedia and whatnot. We have pictures of ourselves and we don’t like…wear masks or anything. We just want the focus to be on the group, the importance of what we’re all doing together. That said, despite a few lineup shuffles and the myriad of guest performers, the core has remained the same and I think we’ve put out a very consistent product both over the course of our three releases and in our live performances.

You have Chris Pennie (Coheed and Cambria, ex-Dillinger Escape Plan) playing drums on ‘Mujahoudni.’ When you hear the track, it makes sense to have him on there, but did you specifically think of him when you wrote the song?

Not for the first few days of working on it, but I think pretty much immediately upon completing the demo, I sent him a text and started talking to him about it. Like you said, it makes a lot of sense and the whole song has this real sense of urgency and immediacy that his playing is really second to none in conveying. He played on our last EP on a really really chilled out track that I think took a lot of people by surprise. It was great and i love the track. But this was still kind of a way to kill it and finally give the people what they want in a way, which is Chris just absolutely laying waste to a total ripper of a track.

Watch Chris Pennie Track Drums for The Armed

You’re based out of the Detroit area. What is the heavy music scene like there these days? Are there any newer bands we should look out for?

There’s good and bad just like anywhere I guess… I’ve been really into this band called- Beast in the Field – lately. It’s just this absolutely crushing duo that is one of the loudest things I’ve ever heard. It’s really overwhelming live. And I might as well plug my other band- Old Gods, which is me, Jeff Tuttle from Dillinger Escape Plan, Derek from Heads Will Roll, and Randall from Red Iron Orchestra just playing super heavy punk music. You should look out for us. We’re really awesome.

Download ‘Young & Beautiful,’ the new EP from The Armed, for free at this link.

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